Long-time members of the Feline Theocracy, our College of Cardinals over at
No Pasaran have a recent post describing austerity measures being enacted in ... France. Not Spain (where bond yields are kissing 7% today), Italy or Portugal, but France. What's even more amazing is how they're reacting.
(Reuters) - Budget cuts that might once have sent French people marching into the streets look set to pass in silence as anxiety about debt and deficits, long non-issues in free-spending France, loom large in voters' minds ahead of a presidential election.
Just a year ago, unions staged spectacular protests against a two-year hike in the legal retirement age, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of demonstrators over many months, and in some places blocking access to fuel supplies.
The reaction was much less explosive this week after Prime Minister Francois Fillon unveiled France's second round of belt-tightening in just three months, intoning that the "hour of truth" had come to defend France's triple-A credit rating.
I read a few German, Greek and Italian news site translations from time to time and the mood seems serious, but the tone is measured and even. The public is less sanguine. Judging by the muted reactions to these budget cuts and
the slow-motion bank runs in progress, the Eurosocialist on the street is scared to death. Some idle speculation, based on nothing and probably dead wrong:
- In the old days, each government would have blamed the others and armies would be being mobilized. Luckily, modern Europeans are such pansies that we need have no fear of that.
- As Mark Steyn loves to point out, a large portion of the Muslim population in countries like France are on the dole. I wonder what's going on in their ghettos right about now. Nothing good, I'm sure.
- If they hadn't killed off all the Jews, they'd probably be blaming them, too.
- An old programming friend of mine used to say that if you ditch your software development process when your project is in crisis, then it was the wrong software development process. Similarly, it's interesting that the progressive, socialist model is being universally ditched by all of these countries. All along, compassion was a luxury good that had almost none of the positive effects (like wealth creation) ascribed to it.
There. That's enough wild speculations for now.
4 comments:
Well, two things your little rant brings to mind:
1. "modern Europeans are such pansies" - Considering that pretty much everyone in a position of power in Europe right now, grew up at a time when their parents were busy blowing each other straight to Hell, I don't think they are "pansies" for being reluctant to get into wars that are not crucial for their survival. If you were to go up to a modern German and call him a peacenik pansy because he doesn't want to see his country bombed into oblivion again, I'm sure he'd be more than happy to rip your lungs out.
2. To hear Mark Steyn talk, you'd think that every other person in Europe was a Muslim. I think it's amusing to look at the actual statistics: The population of France is only 6% Muslim, Germany is only 4%, the UK is only at 2.7% and the rest of Europe looks to generally be rather lower. Sure, it's enough that you can't just ignore their presence, but wetting oneself worrying over less than one person in 20 seems, well, crazy.
The French became pansies after the slaughter of WW I. A certain amount of pansiness isn't a bad thing. When the combined might of Europe can't take down Libya, though, it's gone a bit too far.
Mark's point isn't the current population, but the birth rates. In a generation or two the Muslims will either be a majority or a big portion of the population.
France? whoa, didn't see that coming. Good.
And I think your speculation is dead on. The immigrant population there have nothing to lose by rising up...no citzenship, no jobs. Just a cultural acceptance of violence as a means to an ends. This is going to get interesting.
And I'm sure they will still find a way to blame the jews.
Tim is spot-on about the source of pansification. Here's a blast from the past about the subject.
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